Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) on Friday announced the state will create an electronic health record system for patients enrolled in the state's publicly funded health care system, the Tucson Citizen reports.
Napolitano expects by the end of 2011 that all health providers in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, which provides health care to more than a million Arizona residents, will have access to all EHRs. Pilot testing of the system will begin in January 2008, the Citizen reports (Kornman, Tucson Citizen, 1/27).
The road map for the system was developed in early 2006 by about 200 people, including a 39-person steering committee named in the summer of 2005 by Napolitano. It calls for shared patient history summaries, which would include a basic up-to-date record of medications, conditions and tests. The system also would be expanded to offer electronic prescriptions and secure messaging between physicians, and eventually it would let patients access their own records (iHealthBeat, 4/5/06).
The system will allow physicians in emergency departments, specialty care clinics or primary care offices to access patients' lab test results, diagnostic procedure reports and medical histories. The password-protected EHRs could be backed up with paper or other electronic files, the Citizen reports.
A $12 million HHS grant -- part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 -- will fund the creation of the EHR system (Tucson Citizen, 1/27).